Undergravel filter

[Paul B]

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Why am I the only one who uses a reverse undergravel filter? Am I Bad? :becky:

 

[French27]

Nice teeth! How does one go about setting up a reverse undergravel filter?

 

[Paul B]

You need to be old and not go by rumors. They you have to be prepared to have everyone laugh at you. Then after it is running for 30 or 40 years you need to write a book while you are sipping some Grand Marnier and thinking about all the people who don't run one and are having all sorts of problems while you try to hold back a little laugh (or it could be gas)
You take a regular, freshwater undergravel filter that you get at an antique store. You can't go into a LFS because they will laugh at you. Put the thing in the tank, cover it with gravel. Bend the tubes so they all come out of the tank in the same place and stick them into the bottom of a small container just out of the water. Take a small powerhead and let that pump into tjhe container very slow so about 50 gallons of water goes down each tube. Put a sponge on the intake so you don't suck detritus, fish fry and baked potatoes under the gravel. Go back and finish that bottle of Grand Marnier and put the empty bottle in the tank. :bounce:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZA8aJnkVJM

 

[Humblefish]

Can I use one of these to reverse the flow? ;) Amazon.com : AquaClear 50 Powerhead, 270 Gallons per Hour, UL Listed : Aquarium Water Pump Supplies : Pet Supplies

 

[Paul B]

You can use one of those as long as you can slow it down enough.

 

[redfishbluefish]

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Why am I the only one who uses a reverse undergravel filter? Am I Bad? :becky:

Because you're old and one of a kind....in more ways than just the UGF.


I actually had to look these up to see if they still made undergravel systems...and they do! I used these exclusively on the fry tanks when I use to breed freshwater fish in the 60's.....although not in reverse. They were great because I wouldn't lose any baby fish to the filtration system....which was a problem with conventional filters.


Paul, it looks like you might have hooked someone on your beliefs, but as Paul Harvey would say, you need to tell the rest of the story. You need to let folks know that you can't run conventional sand with this system. I'm not sure what you're using, but it has to be a larger aggregate of some sort.....possibly gravel or coral rubble. Would you please comment on what you are using. Thanks!

 

[Paul B]

Redfishbluefish. This was not meant to push undergravel filters as I don't own an undergravel filter company. I realize most (OK all) don't want to use one and that is fine. I talk about it in more detail in my book and i am sure on these forums many times. UG filters died out because we didn't run the things correctly and it was a disaster. Then someone, probably Brian Williams invented SSBs, DSBs, BBs, bio balls, Dancing with the Stars etc. and we all forgot about UG filters. I think they are the best system for obvious reasons foremost being I installed it, it never crashed so I had no reason to remove it. If it is installed correctly using gravel such as dolomite like I use, or I would imagine aragonite or even crushed coral the thing should last forever as long as you maintain it once or twice a year by stirring it up. The system depends on a little detritus to keep it functioning at peak efficiently. We think of gravel as tiny rocks but to bacteria each piece of gravel is much larger than Chris Christie. Even larger than the state of Texas. I like to think of gravel in a Reverse UG filter like a wall built of cobblestones. The spaces in between the stones are stuffed with old Nancy Pelosi T Shirts. The T shirts would be the detritus that will form there restricting the flow of water. That restricting will allow some anerobic bacteria to grow and process some nitrate. Probably not much, but some. Detritus is made of dead bacteria, copepod shells, and hermit crab ballet slippers, so eventually so much of it will form, that it will restrict the flow to much. It won't stop the water flow because the water is under pressure from below. But we want the water to flow more or less evenly so once in a while I like to make a Typhoon to open up channels especially the ones that form under rocks. Speaking of rocks, none of them should lay flat on the bottom in this or any system. I built column's that my entire reef structure sits on to prevent dead space. I want water to flow all the way to the UG filter plate. Very early in this hobby Robert Straughn "The Salt Water Aquarium in the Home" and the Father of salt water fish keeping, realized that an undergravel filter was the best thing since "American Idol". The problem was in those days (the fiftees) he used the device as a filter and didn't realize that it was the bacteria living in the oxygenated, flowing water that purified the tank and not the filtering capabilities. A "filter" in salt water is stupid because we can't clean it. But unfortunately running water through anything will act as a filter and eventually we want to clean it out. I use a diatom filter for that but any canister filter with nylon floss or clean underwear from Vice President Biden could be used.
Did I explain reverse UG filtration clear enough?
Here you can see my gravel under the pregnant, very happy ruby red dragonett who loves the fact that pods live all the way through the gravel to the bottom and when they come up to play Rugby, she gobbles them up.


The picture of me with my duck in Nam have nothing to do with UG filters but I accidently added it and can't remove it, so Ignore the duck

 

[beaslbob]

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Why am I the only one who uses a reverse undergravel filter? Am I Bad? :becky:

Yeppers.
You're a bad bad boy.
anyone who keeps a reef tank running for over 40 years as about a bad as they come.:wink:

 

[beaslbob]

In fact I''l betcha still got some silent giant air pumps and vortex filters also.

 

[Paul B]

I have a bunch of Vortec Diatom filters that I use all the time. I don't know how you guys run a tank without one. I am sure if I looked I have some Silent Giant air pumps but those are relatively new. The original air pumps were piston type and I used them for probably 25 years. I don't think I have any left.

 

[FlyPenFly]

I’ve thought about this some and might run an experiment with a nano sumped tank. If the return can feed into the under gravel filter turn over will be low but high turn over is a somewhat obsolete idea now anyway.

I guess the advantage would be that you can run a coarse grain bottom and your filtered water from the sump is coming from the bottom of the tank up.

Since it’s sumped you can run filter socks for mechanical filtration. You can also keep bioblocks in the sump for more filtration.

 

[Birdmanfrank]

Redfishbluefish. This was not meant to push undergravel filters as I don't own an undergravel filter company. I realize most (OK all) don't want to use one and that is fine. I talk about it in more detail in my book and i am sure on these forums many times. UG filters died out because we didn't run the things correctly and it was a disaster. Then someone, probably Brian Williams invented SSBs, DSBs, BBs, bio balls, Dancing with the Stars etc. and we all forgot about UG filters. I think they are the best system for obvious reasons foremost being I installed it, it never crashed so I had no reason to remove it. If it is installed correctly using gravel such as dolomite like I use, or I would imagine aragonite or even crushed coral the thing should last forever as long as you maintain it once or twice a year by stirring it up. The system depends on a little detritus to keep it functioning at peak efficiently. We think of gravel as tiny rocks but to bacteria each piece of gravel is much larger than Chris Christie. Even larger than the state of Texas. I like to think of gravel in a Reverse UG filter like a wall built of cobblestones. The spaces in between the stones are stuffed with old Nancy Pelosi T Shirts. The T shirts would be the detritus that will form there restricting the flow of water. That restricting will allow some anerobic bacteria to grow and process some nitrate. Probably not much, but some. Detritus is made of dead bacteria, copepod shells, and hermit crab ballet slippers, so eventually so much of it will form, that it will restrict the flow to much. It won't stop the water flow because the water is under pressure from below. But we want the water to flow more or less evenly so once in a while I like to make a Typhoon to open up channels especially the ones that form under rocks. Speaking of rocks, none of them should lay flat on the bottom in this or any system. I built column's that my entire reef structure sits on to prevent dead space. I want water to flow all the way to the UG filter plate. Very early in this hobby Robert Straughn "The Salt Water Aquarium in the Home" and the Father of salt water fish keeping, realized that an undergravel filter was the best thing since "American Idol". The problem was in those days (the fiftees) he used the device as a filter and didn't realize that it was the bacteria living in the oxygenated, flowing water that purified the tank and not the filtering capabilities. A "filter" in salt water is stupid because we can't clean it. But unfortunately running water through anything will act as a filter and eventually we want to clean it out. I use a diatom filter for that but any canister filter with nylon floss or clean underwear from Vice President Biden could be used.
Did I explain reverse UG filtration clear enough?
Here you can see my gravel under the pregnant, very happy ruby red dragonett who loves the fact that pods live all the way through the gravel to the bottom and when they come up to play Rugby, she gobbles them up.


The picture of me with my duck in Nam have nothing to do with UG filters but I accidently added it and can't remove it, so Ignore the duck

How do I get a copy of your book? My phone number is is 727-457-3925 thank you.

 

[Paul B]

How do I get a copy of your book?

It's under all my posts as long as you don't read this on a phone. It's on Amazon and it's titled
"The Avant-Garde Marine Aquarist" :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:
Thanks

 

[40g]

I run a reverse under gravel filter, powered by a canister, housed in a custom AIO box. I'm still in my first year of reefing. Just experimenting! I learned a lot and will probably go with a traditional sump for the next one.

But for interest sake, here is how it works:

I have the UGF down, and I put flat reef rock along the front edge, I then filled the back cavity with crushed coral. I thought I would have the best of both sides of the "bare bottom vs. sand bottom" debate. The front portion would remain bare.

The filter output connects to that back inlet that feeds into the UGF.

Here's what it would look like if I ran this canister without the AIO box. Way too messy for me.

Here I have most of the hardscape in, and the corals transferred from the old tank which was barely 3 months old before this upgrade. I really liked the look of the bare bottom along the front, but I would later add sand to this because it was pretty hard to clean.

The AIO box is built with black acrylic. It's structure is essential like any AIO - three compartments, allowing water to flow through the skimmer, a media section, and the "pump" which in my case is the inlet and outlet of the canister filter.

I put some acrylic on the outside of the tank just to hid all the gear. You can see how much crushed coral is down in there.

Here it is in it's pretty much finished form, with the background in (I used more black acrylic for this because film is so sloppy). I love how all of the gear is hidden, and I'm still using a canister. Pros and cons of course and Iike I said I'll probably just go with a sump for the next one.

Here's what the tank looks like today. I've added another light, and some more rock work, some coral have died, others have been added. I have a lot more macro algae to help with the filtration. The mushrooms are fricken taking over!

Alright, hope you enjoyed this franken tank!